I speak and write about investor protection, money management, health economics, ecology and social issues. My latest book is "Keynes's Way to Wealth," a revealing look inside the successful portfolios of the world's most famous economist. All told, I've written 14 books including The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome and iMoney: Profitable ETF Strategies for Every Investor and write a column for Reuters.com. I speak across the U.S. and my writing also appears in the New York Times, Morningstar.com and other national publications. This blog delves into financial and social deceptions.

Voter Fraud: A Massive, Anti-Democratic Deception

I knew something wrong was afoot when my wife reported that a 90-year-old woman had to be turned away from voting early at our local polling place. Her crime: She didn’t have a driver’s license. Why would she? She wasn’t able to drive anymore.

As the embarrassed election judge fumbled for a solution as the woman sobbed — this was the first election she missed in her life (and might be her last) — it struck me at how regressive this whole idea of voter policing has become.

Believe me, I know plenty about voting fraud. I’m from Chicago, where countless voters were registered in graveyards and perhaps aided in the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 thanks to Richard J. Daley’s political machine. He managed to put a lot of zombies in polling places — even more than were in political office at the time.

But large-scale voter fraud is virtually non-existent today. Yet the efforts to root it out recall the horrid Jim Crow era. The former “party of Lincoln” has been most active in this fraudulent crusade. It’s mostly prevented people of color and older folks from voting. Could it be that they’d largely vote for Democrats?

Shades of 2000 and 2004 when somehow voting machines weren’t delivered to African-American precincts in Ohio and Florida or unforeseen glitches prevented their ballots from counting. It’s not that the disenfranchised voters weren’t properly registered — by and large they were. But a systematic campaign to keep them from voting was in place. It’s been documented by several news organizations, most notably the Miami Herald.

Let’s say that for the sake of argument that GOP activists are rightly concerned about the “wrong” people somehow getting access to a ballot. Is this a prevalent activity that needs to be stopped at all costs?

One of the best studies on the subject was conducted by Justin Levitt of the New York UniversityLaw School. Its conclusion is simple: allegations of widespread voter fraud are greatly exaggerated.

“Many of the claims of voter fraud amount to a great deal of smoke without much fire…Most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless—and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct, rather than fraud by individual voters. The type of individual voter fraud supposedly targeted by recent legislative efforts—especially efforts to require certain forms of voter ID—simply does not exist.”

The creation and propagation of the voter fraud myth, which has gained huge currency in the GOP over the past decade, has been championed by Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer who is also a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He was recently profiled by Jane Mayer in a New Yorker piece. His work has spawned numerous new rules in states like Florida and Ohio that not only promote strict voter ID laws, but end up restricting voting in minority-dominated areas. Many of these restrictions are likely violations of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law that Lyndon Johnson signed in 1965 to end the Jim Crow era, well, until democracy foes like Spakovsky came on the scene.

If anything, voting should be as simple as going to an ATM. You can do it any time and at virtually any place. You should be do it through the mail, email or by texting. If you can buy a product from amazon.com with one click, you certainly should be able to vote with 21st-century ease.

Not only can voting be made easier, security concerns are easily addressed. If trillions of dollars can be sent around the world every day with no one stealing it, there are plenty of encryption solutions available to prevent voter fraud, which isn’t a problem anyway. Here are some starters for the post-election discussion:

* Make voter registration seamless. It would be tied into your Social Security number, although no one would have to know that. On your 18th birthday, you’re registered automatically, no matter where you are. A central database would have this information.

* Although there have been great strides in absentee and early voting, there shouldn’t be just one election day. The world’s largest democracy — India — takes weeks to vote. Spread it out and shorten the election season while you’re at it.

* You can tie in voter identification to any number of biometrics such as fingerprints or retinal scans. While that may prove too expensive to implement now, it’s something to consider when the technology gets cheaper. DNA sample chips, anyone?

* Make voting mandatory. Once you have universal registration, do what the Aussies do and require people to vote. I know that sounds un-American, but it will get more people into the polling place and more of the electorate involved.

* Don’t link voting to polling places. People are mobile. They should be able to vote anywhere — as long as their voting information is in a master database that can be accessed by voting officials. Why do we have to require that older, disabled or immobile people be wheeled into a polling place? Why can’t they vote at home?

Most importantly, big money needs to be removed from the political campaign process. A constitutional amendment banning all PAC, union and corporate money needs to be in place. Citizens United, which has spawned more than $2 billion in spending during this election cycle, has to go.

How would elections be financed? Make the airwaves free. Most people forget that the electro-magnetic spectrum is owned by everyone. Even the Internet is a public commons developed by public money.

And for God’s sake, can we please shorten the political season? Six months is fine; three months is even better.

Even as the election season comes to a close, our mission in a democracy is clear. If we want to keep it, we need to protect the rights of all of our citizens. That means fair enforcement of voting rights, universal access to ballots (electronic or paper) and getting the greatest number of people involved in the process without the corruption of big-monied interests.

“Out of the many, one” is our motto (e pluribus unum). It still makes sense, but many people still have to rise up and defend it.

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Republicans believe it because they think that anyone not voting for their fellow lunatic is committing voter fraud.

They want complete religious freedom….except for Muslims and where they put buildings. They want government to STAY OUT OF THEIR LIVES…except for rules they believe should be enforced. They want MASSIVE TAX CUTS….and ignore the insane debt.

I hear what you’re saying about electronic convenience, like texting, emailing, etc. But people should also be concerned about the potential for fraud. The traditional method of voting by paper ballot can at least provide a form of audit trail. The migration to new electronic systems could offer newer convenient ways of tampering and not just voting. We don’t want to make things convenient for any would-be tamperer, because it would also potentially undermine the credibility of a voting process and electoral verdict. It is by maximizing the credibility of the electoral and voting process that their verdict is most strongly upheld, which is a great encessarity in these politically polarized times.

There aren’t enough measures in place to seriously prevent fraud or make it visible when it happens. There is almost certainly fraud given how much money and power is involved in our elections and how little we are doing to stop it.

Note: You can buy a product from Amazon with one click. Note that this requires some sort of verified method of payment that at some level comes back to ID. How could you not realize that before you wrote this?

Minorities are allowed to get ID cards. Additionally anybody can help anybody else figure out how to get an ID card.

Helping voters get ID cards can be just like any other get-out-the-vote practice.

How much do ID cards cost? Doesn’t this amount to a poll tax, in direct contravention of the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Citizens over 18 have the right to vote, period. Any restriction of that right is unlawful and unconstitutional.

The ID is free through Department of Motor Vehicles. It doesnt cost anything to the voter. It is not any more disenfranchising than having to show my ID at the doctors office. FREE means it is not a tax to vote.

Evan I totally agree, but I think you are missing one very important aspect of the I.D Card controversy.

I pose this question, without point fingers, just a straight forward question;

If a person is too stupid to figure out how to get a proper I.D. Card should they be voting anyway? Yes I used the word stupid because with all the media and easy access to information today it not possible for someone to be ignorant of the processes.

It is a little insane that I can do all sorts of highly secure 128-bit encrypted financial transactions from depositing a check to my bank account to buying, selling, and withdrawing funds from my brokerage account not only electronically, but on my smart-phone. Yet, I need to show up in person, present an i.d. and then use a felt marker to vote for electorates who sometime in the near future will represent me in voting for a president. Surely, there’s an electronic system that can ferret out my one true identity in a few seconds in the way a bank does.

Maybe that should have been a condition of our TARP bail-out — the banks share their people-identifying technology with the government.

why is it so difficult to give an identification for voting….I don’t see why this is perceived as a republican issue….it was LBJ, Daley in Chicago and Wright that led the country in signing up dead people and graves…now only the republicans are responsible for it. Why can’t we agree that it can be a real problem for all..and look for a solution to it….The blame game has shut down Washington and because of the aggressive articles and opinions you can see why…is anyone really offering a solution to the situation, or is it just easier to blame the other side….

You left out Rhode Island, possibly the most blue state in the entire country. We have a new voter ID law too. If Republicans run Rhode Island, they are being extremely covert about it and are perfectly happy to let the Democrats hold all the offices, run everything, and pass all the laws, like this one.

Thanks for your comments. An idea proposed a few years ago would create something like a universal ID — a number with some kind of personal identification encryption. With today’s technology, it could be as simple as a tiny chip. So the idea of requiring that voters show up at a specific place on a specific day is not only archaic, it discourages true democracy. Maybe people should have unique bar codes for their phones or online ballots. As I stated yesterday, if financial services clearinghouses can process trillions of dollars of transaction, we can certainly send a few bytes of election information to the right place. We have to take this process into the 21st century. Right now it’s stuck in the 19th.

How can you say “But large-scale voter fraud is virtually non-existent today.” When I have seen in Indiana in 2008…ACORN with buses…telling people to vote for someone else… by getting an id under their name..my sister stated they allowed my 99 yr old grandmother to vote twice….in Indiana.

I now live in NC…where Id is not required…here people were told they already voted when they did not…

In the areas where IDs are not needed…many people can vote for anyone and have. They go to different areas and claim to be other people as long as you know their address.

IDs are required or almost everything we do… if this old woman is getting SSI or any other government aid…she has a non-drivers ID.

All this effort to stop Voter ID laws is ridiculous….. our current system is rife with fraud!

You can now register and vote all in the same day, with NO proof you havent already voted, and you are who you say you are!

So why is it so terrible to ask people to show a Photo ID? You cannot even live in society today without it. It IS NOT depressing the minority vote. Thats just ridiculous.

The Democrats simply dont want anything to stifle the fraud they currently have, which even a few hundred votes, can change an election….

They already lowered the Military Vote for 2012 Presidential election by not even opening the offices that allowed new Military staff to register in Virginia. Military voting (from those currently deployed) dropped 95% in 2012 due to this trick. Simply keep down the vote by not allowing people to register!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to keep our votes honest…. make sure people are who they say they are.

Also, those machines that were automatically choosing Obama, did anyone hear about one choosing Romney???? If it was just that the machines were not calibrated, then why would they have never chosen the other person?

This idea that there is no fraud so we dont need any voter ID is simply a lie to allow to allow voter fraud and grow it so they can control the elections.

It is not voter suppression to ask for an ID in today society, its absolutely ridiculous for even claiming this. you cannot live today without one.

The asininity of somehow ignoring the fact that ID’s are demanded of for the purchase of items privately, makes it all the more glaring and hypocritical for Democrats to oppose an ID for voting. It makes it appear that they are dependent on these cards not existing.

Von, I agree with your point about the airwaves being commons. However the towers and broadcasting equipment does not. It could well be made a condition of the media licenses that they have to donate X amount of time for political debates but I believe that was done in the past and things were not much different.

The Internet is certainly not part of the commons. ARPANet was the public research into the idea of a communication network that could survive nuclear attack. The Internet is a conglomeration of autonomous and primarily privately owned routers and pipelines that are not paid for by the State. It is arguable that some points on the Internet are State owned (such as universities), but the Internet is not publicly owned.

However, it is extremely low cost to share over the Internet and it is how third party candidates get their word out.

There really is no need to have biometrics for voting, just send it to the voter’s address, have them fill it out, sign it, and mail it back. I’m sure some people will find a way to begin gaming that system, but it sure does work for absentee and should become a part of the normal voting process – especially for those that are not very mobile.

Mandatory voting…. how would that would produce any better results than voluntary voting where most do not show up. An uninformed vote is worse than no vote.

PACs aren’t evil. They run ads and attempt to influence voters by getting their message out. That’s all part of Freedom. PACs exist because the Federal government made laws against free speech with ridiculous restrictions about contributions and advertising on individuals. Something about the First Amendment comes to mind, “Congress shall make no law”. But they do anyway. They also make the press get a license so they answer to the government.

What is wrong with our country is that we believe it is a democracy and that we have to fight to keep our rights. The reality is we live in a Republic and a republican government is charged with protecting the rights of all, including the minority from the majority. However, our republic is obviously broken and since our government no longer serves to protect liberty it no longer serves us at all and no amount of correcting the fraudulent vote is going to overcome that.

I must share my thoughts about voter fraud. I am thinking that software in our electronic voting machines CAN be manipulated. Can’t help but wonder if that is what happened to my husband, myself and at least 20 other friends and acquaintances. (and more than I do not know about) Our votes were CHANGED. One friend said she had to correct her Presidential vote THREE times. (I only had to correct mine twice!) This happened in and outside of Texas. And believe me, I reported it—to what end I’ll probably never know…..And by the way, every one of these voters were voting Romney and the machine kept changing to Obama. Do we care? You better believe it.

Simply amazing that this alleged woman in this alleged story has no ID in order to vote. How does she cash checks? How does she do her banking? How does she pay her bills? How does she do the day to day things that everyone does everyday without thinking about it?

Everyone of these stories of alleged voter issues with voter ID, when investigated, turn out to be complete lies. Every single one.

Of course there is no election fraud when you use strawman arguments over and over again in order to prevent anyone from being able to remotely investigate voter fraud.

And of course, in 2008 there were areas of Ohio that had more votes than registered voters, but there is no fraud……

Voter fraud doesn’t exist” says the person whose side is benefiting from the fraud. In fact, we should make it easier to commit fraud because the losers on the other side respect the vote too much to commit fraud, right? Wow, this “democracy” stuff is easy.

“People should be required to vote.” Wow, you really are a fascist aren’t you? You know it doesn’t “sound American”? That’s because it isn’t American.

Voting is as much a responsibility as a right. One that has been corrupted by the Democrat machine. The corrupt and institutional stealing of elections made famous in Chicago has now gone national thanks to the criminals in the Obama campaign. Alexrod and co. belong prison. But, given our “Justice System” is lead by the most corrupt Attorney General in history who reports to the most corrupt President in history, they will instead get fat paychecks paid for by their political enemies via taxation.

It’s hard to know how much longer honest Americans will continue to allow this to go on. I have a sense it won’t be much longer.

Tie voter registration to my SSN? Nah. I’m a computer geek & I’m protective of my sensitive information. Plus, the job I hold requires extra precautions so that OTHER people’s personal information remains that way. I take this seriously b/c I have a good background & live by what most call The Golden Rule. Hackers will find a way to hack the voter system & steal your identity b/c it would be linked so in what real-world scenario is this a good idea? Even a voter name & p.w. on a gov’t site would be faulty b/c then the gov’t has control over all of it which is socialism & auto-registry sounds like a military draft. IF a unified, multi-state, unbiased website voting system could be created, I’d suggest a thorough lie detector test & moral examination of all people associated with creating it & counting the polls. IF (big IF) that could be done, I’d also suggest replacing the Electoral College with a National Popular Vote b/c it’s UNFAIR to exclude the POTUS from the same counting system as the rest of politicians who must gain the popular vote of ALL the people they would be “serving”. I do agree with shortening election seasons & lengthening the time to vote… simply keep the 1st Tues in Nov as the “deadline” & counting date.

Biometrics like chip implants will never work among Christians who’ve read Rev. 13:16-17. Through God-given free will & my constitutional right to freedom of religion & speech, I choose to believe the beast is a type of governmental entity since that’s the only way to cause ALL people, “small & great, rich & poor, free & bonded, to receive the mark of the beast”. I will respectfully decline first b/c I’m nice & believe in doing things the right way, but if it is ever forced, my attitude will quickly change & I’ll resist. Approach is everything with me. It’s like the difference of a parent who yells at their child “I TOLD you to clean up!”, and a parent who says “Hey, things are getting a bit junky, would you mind helping me clean up?” Which one would prompt a better response? I’d rather go with the teamwork idea & help others.

Children begin growing their own minds & personalities very early so if they turn out to be stubbornly independent like me, they won’t want to be forced to do something the gov’t tells them either. I don’t have a choice to opt-out of paying Social Security I’ve seen missing out of my 25 yrs of paychecks & logically, after trillions are spent by this administration, SS will not HAVE any of my hard-earned money derived from MY LABOR left to draw from by the time I reach the age in 20+ yrs from now & need it to live. I understand the need for taxPAYers, but the fact remains that gov’t misuses the money they take from us so imagine the following shoe swap scenario:

The IRS/gov’t gets a 1099/W-2 from an employer, but shows no tax return for it from the PPL on it so they declare fraud. What does the IRS do to ppl who THEY say committed fraud? …Audits to go back as far as they legally can so they can get more $; issue fines with interest added so they can get even more $ on top of whatever they “say” you owe & you’ll have to accept it as accurate; seize or freeze your assets & even sell your stuff for you so you can pay them for your fraudulent activities. How nice of them to help re-count & figure it out like that! They may not have a physical gun to your head, but it’s impossible to know all their rules so you cannot argue with any governmental entity b/c they have the power to change the rules just to be sure you lose. The Golden Rule doesn’t apply to gov’t b/c they (as a whole) forgot how to place themselves in the position of others their rules affect & removed any morals from the equation many yrs ago to replace them with more laws & regulations to suit THEIR best interests so we, the people, just have to suck it up “or else”. Sorry it was long, but thanks for listening! :)

Although my politics run to right generally I have to admit this article hits on some really well thought changes to the whole election process.

However, I’m not so sure that it is correct in it’s statements regarding voter fraud. For instances here is California, a person can register to vote without providing any proof they have the “right” to vote. This presents a major problem in areas such as California and Florida, where immigration numbers are so high.

Why do some people get so enraged about being asked to provide proof fo who they are for something as important as voting. It’s a privilege reserved for citizens only and as such should be protected from those that would attempt to avoid the laws protecting this privilege. Geez you have to prove who you are to get a Drivers License in most states, but not to vote. What’s up with that.

Try to get a US Passport without proper and accepted proof of who you are.

There is so much money and power connected with Federal Elections these days you can’t help but think there is some level of corruptions associated with the process. So why not develop procedures to eliminate the holes in the security of the election processes. The answer is the people in power don’t want to loose their power, that’s why there are no term limits, and no meaningful campaign reforms being brought forward by the Congress. Many states have enacted term limits because of the very issues that exist in the Senate and the house. No one should be able to make a Career out of being and elected official, period.

What will it take to make these changes? I’m not sure there are enough people currently in office to make this happen.

Voter fraud is real and does exist. As such it should be standard law in every state that some form of id be presented before someone is able to vote whether they present a state id or a voter id. Either way this voter fraud needs to be stopped. One person should only be able to vote once, not three or five times just because they really love their candidate…

Polling stations are outdated but really the only rampant fraud I ever read about is absentee voting. That process should be retooled. Make people request permission to vote absentee via the internet or phone, send them a pin number and let them vote online. Paper forms that take weeks to count and flooded with fake votes…that’s crazy. I will say that I see voter ID laws in a similar light to my alarm system or my airbag in my car. Neither will stop bad things from happening but one is a deterrent and the other lessens the severity if bad things happen. So why not be safe and require ID cards? There was suspicions in early medicine of how things worked but it wasn’t until the microscope that we knew for sure…same goes for all forms of voter fraud. We will not know if it exists until we enact a way to try and see it…pretending it isn’t there is not going to cure any problem ever.

Too bad the article didn’t actually tell the truth of the situation that the old lady didn’t have ANY I.D. and that’s why she got turned down…no one expected her to have a driver’s license just a valid way of identifying herself. As an independent voter and a disabled vet I can’t believe some of the common sense ideas that get attacked by Democrats??? Simply verifying the status of who one is in order to vote is a to me a good thing because it does mean something to be an American. That’s why I fought for this country. You can’t just hand out citizenship to any country arbitrarily and any leader who is not smart enough to protect his country’ borders in the past has never done it’s country justice. Of course the right wing does want some reasonable things…they are parents and soldiers and bankers and teachers and laborers just like everyone else but they do not wish to pay for benefits for those who should come here legally. I don’t either and neither does anyone else I talk to no matter what they think politically. This article is pretty lame

Basically your argument is “We have not found life in the universe outside of Earth, therefore life outside of earth does not exist.” Its hard to prove something if those doing that something are deliberately doing it behind the curtains because it is illegal. Voter fraudsters don’t go announce that they just committed a felony (well some idiots have done so). But voter fraud is real, and it is not a surprise that Democrats are the biggest beneficiaries of it, hence why the Democrats are so against election integrity. Check the inks in the first section of http://www.youargue.com/c/66frb-three-elections-proposals.html that cites sources to it.

I’m all for knocking off this ridiculous campaign against nonexistent voter fraud, but my problem is when I punch something into a computer, I have to take it on faith that it registers correctly. If I vote for John Smith, I want to make sure that it actually goes to John Smith and not Bill Jones. The only way to do that is to have a paper record that can be compared against the electronic record. And don’t tell me that a computer can’t be programmed so that votes register for the wrong candidate. Of course it can: and none of us would know if that’s what’s happening- and we’d have no way to find out.

I don’t understand this. If we aren’t actually CHECKING for voter fraud, how do we know it doesn’t occur? Because we’re not seeing it? Of course we’re not. We’re not actively looking for it. Not universally.

Please list HOW MANY forms are usable as ID. Pass Ports, Soc Sec, state IDs, etc. How does this lady cash her Soc sec? How does she get food stamps, HOW does she get her OBOcare? DNC requires ID at their conventions, USE that card. I bet it is good. BS

Despite those who, “doth protest too much,” there is plenty of evidence of a growing problem with voter fraud. Groups like, True the Vote and Black Box Voting, provides convincing statistics. There are documented cases of folks overtly bragging about voting multiple times or, as Chicago voters like to put it, “vote now, vote often.” When you have more than 100% of registered voters in districts all voting for the same candidate, “Houston, there’s a problem.” And those who protest the loudest against suggestions to correct this problem, Democrats, seem to be those most often accused, and found guilty of, fraud. The very people who often require photo ID to attend their functions, fight hardest against it. The love to use their usual standard, assertions of racism which is flatly untrue. Those they claim to seek to protect, the very poor and minorities, most of whom do receive some sort of public assistance, are all required to have photo ID to be eligible for that help. As for that elderly woman without a driver’s license, those ID’s are readily available from states. My elderly mom, also unable to drive, needed to have a state photo ID to conduct any/all of her banking transactions. No, it is just a very flimsy, lame excuse for those who stand to gain the most by perpetuating voter fraud.

The lady has had since June to apply for a certificate. See info below from Texas voter website: Texas voters must show a photo ID to vote in elections in Texas, unless you are exempt (see “Exemptions” below).

If you do not have any of the following acceptable forms of ID, beginning June 26, 2013, you may apply for an Election Identification Certificate (EIC) at no charge. However, if you already have any of the following forms of ID, you are not eligible for an EIC:

Texas driver license—unexpired or expired no longer than 60 days at the time of voting Texas personal identification card—unexpired or expired no longer than 60 days at the time of voting Texas concealed handgun license—unexpired or expired no longer than 60 days at the time of voting U.S. passport book or card—unexpired or expired no longer than 60 days at the time of voting U.S. Military identification with photo—unexpired or expired no longer than 60 days at the time of voting U.S. Citizenship Certificate or Certificate of Naturalization with photo Texans may also obtain an EIC at:

I was so surprised to find this article in Forbes because it is disturbing on many levels. First using various tactics to incite emotions in people does not serve as evidence. He clearly acknowledges voter fraud in one paragraph and then denies that it exists in the next without any evidence. He shows that he must be a racist because he insinuates that only blacks and the elderly are unable to acquire proper ID. His next interesting far fetched idea is to create a data base and track everyone’s fingerprints. Does this sound more than Orwellian “big brother” anyone? He voter tracking ideas are far more intrusive and costly than requiring people to show up with a photo ID (which most states will provide free of cost for low income and elderly) and is counter to his original argument that we should be able to vote without ID. Next he argues that we should all be forced by our government to vote. What country does this guy live in? He talks about our democracy, last I looked we are still a representative republic. This entire article is ridiculous.

What this writer fails to address is that (voter) FRAUD of any kind, is a crime and WRONG and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law when ever and where ever it is found. As to ways to prevent it, Bio metric ID’s with Thumbprint is a good idea. Linking to a social security number (which no person in the USA is required to have) is a bad idea.